Friday, June 6, 2014

Tetris (Game Boy) - A Major Gaming Milestone

30 years ago today, a Russian programmer
named Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris, a puzzle game whose popularity and status
as a gaming icon persists to this day (fun fact: “Tetris” is a portmanteaux of
the Greek number prefix “tetra-“, meaning “four”, and “tennis”, the favorite
sport of Alexey Pajitnov). In celebration, it seemed appropriate to review
something Tetris-related, and I thought what better game to discuss than the
version released for Nintendo’s original Game Boy handheld in 1989 (which,
according to an IGN interview, also happens to be Alexey Pajitnov’s favorite)?
Now, retro games (for our purposes, anything from the first four console
generations) are not usually reviewed on this blog unless it’s part of a
special event (see: our Duke Nukem reviews), which this game fits the criteria
for. Before typing this, I played a few games to figure out how to approach
this game, and to complete the experience I played it on an original Game Boy
device (which, incidentally, I never owned before my trip to the last WonderCon). So without further ado, let’s see how well this classic game still
holds up.

Discussing the basic gameplay of Tetris,
in which you control falling blocks, or tetrominos (called Tetriminos in modern
releases), to clear lines in a matrix, would be useless, as it is so well-known
and nearly everyone that’s played at least some version of the game has found
something addictive in its simplicity (me included). However, I will discuss
the different gameplay modes of the Game Boy version as well the minute
differences that make it different from other iterations. Aside from the main
game, labeled as Type A, there is also a Type B game which consists of trying
to clear a set number of lines. The difficulty for either can be set by what
level you wish to start from, while the difficulty for the Type B game can be
further set by the High, or how high up you want any Junk Blocks (blocks that
are placed on the board to impede your progress) to be on the screen (the 0
setting means zero Junk Blocks in this case). Before playing each game, you can
also select from 3 different music tracks (labeled Type A, B, and C), or have
the music off (which isn’t likely to be selected). The Type A music is the most
famous among these, being a rendition of a Russian folk song called
Korobeiniki, more commonly known stateside as the “Tetris Theme” (for those taking
notes, the Type C track is Baroque musician Johann Sebtastian Bach’s French Suite
No. 3 in B Minor, BWV 814: Menuet).

You're probably thinking about where that falling block should go.

One thing that should be noted about this
version of Tetris is how it’s different on a technical level, graphics aside.
While of course it doesn’t have some of the more modern gameplay elements such
as Hold and Easy Spin due to when it was released, it does have a notable
difference in the way gravity works in-game. In many of the more recent
releases of the game, the tetrominos have a sort of gravity where, after a line
is cleared, any lingering pieces from cleared portions of a block will fall
down to fill empty spaces, which can end up clearing more lines in the process.
As it is one of the earliest known releases of Tetris, the Game Boy version
doesn’t have this kind of gravity, so any remaining portions of blocks stay
where they are until they are cleared. Depending on one’s perspective, this can
end up creating some additional tension as you try to manipulate incoming
blocks to clear away more space for larger tetrominos (especially if you’re trying
to get a Tetris with an I Block).

I may not have had any true nostalgia for
this particular version, but Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy is definitely a
classic game and its simple concept has allowed it to stand up even to today.
Many forms of Tetris are available for a wide variety of platforms, even on
mobile phones and nearly every major console since its release; in fact, a brand
new Tetris game, called Tetris Ultimate, is due for release later this year on
next-gen consoles and PC. If you plan on playing this particular version and
have not already, I would recommend doing so on a Game Boy Advance SP (or a
compatible DS if you have one), since the system has a proper backlight that
its older brethren lacked (proper lighting makes all the difference). However,
no matter what version of the game you decide to play, you are still playing Tetris.